Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Meditation: The fights in Ulduar are much longer and more mana intensive. Mediation is must.

Desperate Prayer: This is a personal choice... if you'll use, it's amazing, but I know many holy priests who say they forget about it. Personally, it's saved my life (and prevented wipes) countless times.

Holy Reach: I can't believe I see holy priests not specing into this. Ulduar has many bosses that you want to be as far away from as possible. For example, healing OT tanking Stormcaller Brundir on 10man Council. Or where the raid will be very spread out. IE Hodir. Out of Range is not an option.

Healing Prayers: This is a recent change to my spec (took the points out of Test of Faith). I found myself using Prayer of Healing a LOT now. Hodir being the main example, but really almost every boss in Ulduar has some sort of AOE damage that needs to be mended. Plus the reduction to PoM is nice.

Body and Soul: THIS IS A PVP TALENT. I can't imagine why you'd spec into this as a PVE priest. Plus I bet the disc priests in your raid don't appreciate when you PW:S anyone besides yourself.

Serendipity: Greater Heal cast? Yes please. I know you don't like using greater heal because the cast is too long and it's too mana extensive, but tanks are getting hit hard. Use it. The mana cost is down. The cast time is down. Just use it.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Interesting, I hadn't thought about not getting SoR for a raid build, but it usually doesn't come in very handy does it? Either I die and the other healers manage, or it's a wipe. I'll miss Lightwell so much tho.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Latya

Holy Reach: I can't believe I see holy priests not specing into this. Ulduar has many bosses that you want to be as far away from as possible. For example, healing OT tanking Stormcaller Brundir on 10man Council. Or where the raid will be very spread out. IE Hodir. Out of Range is not an option.

Holy reach only effects the RADIUS of your PoH, CoH, DH, and Holy Nova. By specing into this you don't get to be any further away form people/boss. I can't remember a time when I didn't get the max benefit form a CoH or PoH that an extra 20% would have given me.

Originally Posted by Latya

Body and Soul: THIS IS A PVP TALENT. I can't imagine why you'd spec into this as a PVE priest. Plus I bet the disc priests in your raid don't appreciate when you PW:S anyone besides yourself.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Blitond

Holy reach only effects the RADIUS of your PoH, CoH, DH, and Holy Nova. By specing into this you don't get to be any further away form people/boss. I can't remember a time when I didn't get the max benefit form a CoH or PoH that an extra 20% would have given me.

Your job as a healer is to make sure you do your best to keep them up. The fact they're terrible enough to need a speed boost to avoid raid damage when others can get out of the way, it's not your job to correct their mistakes.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Latya

Holy Reach: I can't believe I see holy priests not specing into this. Ulduar has many bosses that you want to be as far away from as possible. For example, healing OT tanking Stormcaller Brundir on 10man Council. Or where the raid will be very spread out. IE Hodir. Out of Range is not an option.

I couldn't disagree more. It affects Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Divine Hymn and Circle of Healing. Holy Nova is useless for raiding, so that part doesn't matter. Circle of Healing is a smart heal, it's easy to pick someone in a clust that needs heals, and if they're too spread out for 15 yards then chances are they're too spread out for 18 yards, so not worth it. Prayer of Healing already has a large range, and if you can't organize groups in such a way to get party members within 30 yards, 6 more yards won't help. Divine Hymn already has a 40 yard range so, again, the extra range is rather pointless since it heals anyone you could reach with a Flash Heal, Greater Heal, etc.

Also, it does NOT affect the range of spells like Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Renew, Power Word: Shield, or Prayer of Mending, nor does it affect the range on who you can target for the spells that it does affect like Prayer of Healing or Circle of Healing. So the reasoning based on staying as far away as possible isn't valid either.

Basically, my point is, you can easily make a few very tiny and reasonable adjustments probably worth doing regardless and that talent is worthless. For example, rather than just saying "spread out", say "group 1 spread out here, group 2 spread out here..." and you shouldn't have to worry about people being in range for PoH. Beyond that, you're giving up some nice talents between Inner Focus, Spirit of Redemption, and Test of Faith and I can't see such a small difference being worth it.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Ew Lightwell.

WHAT?!

Lolwell is awesome with fights that require little moving around. Plop it next to you and don't worry about wasting mana casting heals on yourself. It's also clickable while stunned, like when you're stuck in a spider's web, so you can come out of stuns full health and immediately burst up your tank and low teammates. Lolwell is for you, mana is for your teammates.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Kelesti

The fact they're terrible enough to need a speed boost to avoid raid damage when others can get out of the way, it's not your job to correct their mistakes.

Yes your right its not my job, but Ulduar is progression for my guild. A two point talent that I could pick up to help other people out is worth it imo. The main reason I haven't picked it up is because currently there's 2 Disc priests in the raid and I don't wanna be tossing out weaken soul for my shield when disc is much more powerful not to mention the other benefits disc shields have.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Latya

Ew Lightwell.

I know. It's hard to let go of SoR but if you think about it... SoR hardly EVER saves a wipe, just postpones it. I find everything else more important.

To me, Spirit of Redemption isn't about saving a wipe (though I think it has saved one or two for me since I picked it up). First, the 5% Spirit buff alone is decent enough for 1 talent point; might not be overwhelming, but it is absolutely part of the equation. Second, I find it invaluable not for saving wipes, but for avoiding problems when I die. For instance, if healing is tight and I die, it gives me an opportunity to call out that out and continue healing while a druid is picked that can get me up, and there is no loss of healing throughput during this process; it also has the added bonus of providing a nice little "here's my corpse" sign so the druid doesn't have to find my ping on the minimap if I'm out of range. Even in cases where healing can survive my death, it still provides me and the other heals a buffer to make adjustments or a bit more of a warning to know they may need to blow cooldowns. Hell, when I know I'm not gonna get battle ressed, it's a great opportunity to throw out my Guardian Spirit if it's off cooldown.

Seriously, 5% Spirit and that kind of flexibility for only one talent point? How can you not consider that one of the single best points you can spend in the Holy tree?

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Holy reach only effects the RADIUS of your PoH, CoH, DH, and Holy Nova. By specing into this you don't get to be any further away form people/boss. I can't remember a time when I didn't get the max benefit form a CoH or PoH that an extra 20% would have given me.

I stand corrected, Blitond on the distance thing. However, I have to disagree on the 20% radius thing. I'm fairly sure that 20% saved a few people in Hodir last night.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Blitond

Yes your right its not my job, but Ulduar is progression for my guild. A two point talent that I could pick up to help other people out is worth it imo. The main reason I haven't picked it up is because currently there's 2 Disc priests in the raid and I don't wanna be tossing out weaken soul for my shield when disc is much more powerful not to mention the other benefits disc shields have.

If you have even 1 Discipline Priest, don't grab the talent. Chances are the extra absorption and healing that their shield provides easily makes up for the movement speed, while it costs them nothing. You're better off talking to one of the Disc Priests and having them watching for that, while you focus on getting a quick heal on them like an Empowered Renew, Flash Heal (with or without SoL), etc.

And as others have said, it IS the DPS's responsibility to not stand in the fire. If you can continue to cover for them being slow to react, they will be slower to learn because the incentive is lower ("eh, my healer will save me if I wait that extra half second to finish my cast"). Don't enable your DPS to be stupid!

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by Zeuq

I couldn't disagree more. It affects Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Divine Hymn and Circle of Healing. Holy Nova is useless for raiding, so that part doesn't matter. Circle of Healing is a smart heal, it's easy to pick someone in a clust that needs heals, and if they're too spread out for 15 yards then chances are they're too spread out for 18 yards, so not worth it. Prayer of Healing already has a large range, and if you can't organize groups in such a way to get party members within 30 yards, 6 more yards won't help. Divine Hymn already has a 40 yard range so, again, the extra range is rather pointless since it heals anyone you could reach with a Flash Heal, Greater Heal, etc.

Also, it does NOT affect the range of spells like Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Renew, Power Word: Shield, or Prayer of Mending, nor does it affect the range on who you can target for the spells that it does affect like Prayer of Healing or Circle of Healing. So the reasoning based on staying as far away as possible isn't valid either.

Basically, my point is, you can easily make a few very tiny and reasonable adjustments probably worth doing regardless and that talent is worthless. For example, rather than just saying "spread out", say "group 1 spread out here, group 2 spread out here..." and you shouldn't have to worry about people being in range for PoH. Beyond that, you're giving up some nice talents between Inner Focus, Spirit of Redemption, and Test of Faith and I can't see such a small difference being worth it.

Yup. And Divine Providence is useless because if 10% more healing on most of your spells probably wouldn't save someone from dying anyways if they are taking that much damage, and would probably overheal if they haven't taken enough. Oh, and the 2 extra seconds on ProM is useless because, hey its already bouncing around.

Oh. Empowered Healing is useless because 40% bonus healing on Gheal is useless cause its too slow to catch any damage, and even if it did land, it would overheal. Same with the 20% on flash heal, except the extra 20% probably wouldn't be enough, and if it did land, it would be overheal anyway by another healer.

Erm, Spiritual Healing is useless because of the same reason as Divine Providence.

And the 5% extra crit of Holy specialization is dumb because you can't control when the extra 5% will happen, so you can't rely on that.

Renew talents? LOL. who uses renew?

Healing Focus is a PvP talent b/c you never never never get hit in a raid. ever..... never. Not once. Period.

EDIT: Sorry Zeuq that your the target, but I have been fighting the Holy Reach battle since forever. Its yet another talent that is useful when the situation needs it... and the situation when it can be useful is more often than not. In 3.1, now, more than ever.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

When are you droppin' SoL for max deeps? =P. They are better spent in Imp SW:P.

in depth analysis would be good. i have been crunching the numbers, and it seems there's a significant hole in this argument. i think it has something to do with the following:

smite crit + sol non-crit smite

vs.

smite crit + smite crit

depending on your chance to crit, yes it lowers your dps from critical but it actually boost your dps when no critical happen. sol becomes less affective as your critical chance increases. i have been compiling gear sets from ulduar and from what i'm seeing, you can easily get to 40% critical chance through basic raid buffs.

of course removing sol from the build at this point is not practical, as you will go oom within minutes.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Ok. Its late, but basically, SoL reduces the chance for a higher crit ratio, while increasing your DpM. Its very possible for someone with 40% crit with SoL to do more damage than without. However, the person w/o SoL has a much higher chance to do considerably more damage. I think where SoL looses its possibility for higher dps is because you aren't just chain casting smite. You are also keeping up 2DoTs and casting Holy Fire and SW.

But, lets say, casting x4 Smites during the HF CD using the Glyph. 40% crit would dictate at least 1 would be a crit, and a high probability for 2. Lets say you crit on the 1st smite and proc SoL. That means that the next smite cannot crit, but is 25% faster (given no haste). You have lost a 40% chance to do an extra 50% damage for a guaranteed 25%dps increase and costing no mana. Maybe I'll get around to figuring out an equation to plug numbers into, but probability really isn't my strong suit... Danner is better @ that.

The real kicker is how would the 2 points spent in something like Imp SW:P factor into the dps equation.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

This might sound stupid, but havent gotten around to testing it, but does the damage from manaburn crit?

And on the SoL topic, you could view it as a 100% critdamage bonus at the cost of a gcd, obviously shamans have a critmodifier + lightning overload. When holy fire is up and I'm chaincasting smite during dailies I barely notice the loss in gcd, and do about 3/4 of a mobs health.

Also did some testing yesterday without any hitgear (greedy casters :<) and I got to 2495dps. Dont know how exactly I did it because the attempts after only averaged me at 2100dps..

why I ask it is, manaburn burns 13% of the targets mana (mana drained cannot exceed 26% of the caster's mana) and does 0.5 shadowdamage for every point of burned mana. now obviously bosses have a huge load of mana, so we are looking at the 26% part. I have unbuffed 21673 mana, so 21673 x 0.26 = 5635 mana / 2 = 2818 shadowdamage.

at 25k mana raidbuffed that changes to 3250 shadowdamage.

edit: Never mind the manaburn question, I looked it up on wowhead and according to the comments stated there it does not crit nor does it benefit from gear, but since it does shadowdamage it benefits from talents.

Re: Have a good Holy Build?

Originally Posted by SpiritusVex

Ok. Its late, but basically, SoL reduces the chance for a higher crit ratio, while increasing your DpM. Its very possible for someone with 40% crit with SoL to do more damage than without. However, the person w/o SoL has a much higher chance to do considerably more damage. I think where SoL looses its possibility for higher dps is because you aren't just chain casting smite. You are also keeping up 2DoTs and casting Holy Fire and SW.

But, lets say, casting x4 Smites during the HF CD using the Glyph. 40% crit would dictate at least 1 would be a crit, and a high probability for 2. Lets say you crit on the 1st smite and proc SoL. That means that the next smite cannot crit, but is 25% faster (given no haste). You have lost a 40% chance to do an extra 50% damage for a guaranteed 25%dps increase and costing no mana. Maybe I'll get around to figuring out an equation to plug numbers into, but probability really isn't my strong suit... Danner is better @ that.

The real kicker is how would the 2 points spent in something like Imp SW:P factor into the dps equation.

Too late for real maths.

Dammit, I'm at work, but this challenge I cannot resist. Guess it's overtime for me today then :P

Anyway, I seem to recall calculating this earlier, and you needed a seriously large crit for SoL to lower your DPS, because even while the SoL smite cannot crit, it is cast in less time. Let's see if we can reproduce the math.

Basically, assume Smite does X damage and is cast over 2 seconds.
A Smite crit will do 1.5X damage, and is cast over 2 seconds.
A SoL-smite will do X damage, and is cast over 1.5 seconds (one GCD).

As you can see, at 100% crit, you don't want to proc SoL, as that will lower your DPS. But we're not likely to get 100% crit.
The turning point happens once you pass 66,66% crit, before that, SoL is a DPS increase, after that, SoL is a DPS decrease.
Luckily, you're not likely to get there anytime soon, so SoL is still a sound investment.

Edit:
Oooh. I forgot Twin Disciplines. This makes your instant spells do 10% more damage.
As a result, a SoL Smite will do 1.1X damage and is still cast over 1.5 seconds.
"Chaincasting" SoL-smite will do 0.73X DPS (1.1X damage every 1.5 seconds).
This means the crit bar is significantly raised, the turning point now happens at a whooping 93.5% crit.
I guess you can all pick SoL with no bad conscience.